We might put the problem as a proposition: “Governance” signifies a specific mode of governing that is evacuated of agents and institutionalized in processes, norms, and practices. According to social theorist Thomas Lemke, “governance involves a shift in the analytical and theoretical focus from institutions to processes of rule.” Lemke adds that governance “announces the eclipse or erosion of state sovereignty” Importantly, this emphasis on process over sources or institutions is not restricted to methodology. Rather, as we will see in the discussions of devolution, responsibilization, and best practices, much of the normative and constitutive power of governance occurs through and in processes that bear no reference to agents.

Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, loc. 237